In contemporary terminology, people of Persian heritage native specifically to present-day Afghanistan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan are referred to as Tajiks, whereas those in the eastern Caucasus (primarily the present-day Republic of Azerbaijan), albeit heavily assimilated, are referred to as Tats.[19][20] However, historically, the terms Tajik, Tat, and Persian were synonymous and were used interchangeably,[19] and many of the most influential Persian figures hailed from outside Iran's present-day borders to the northeast in Central Asia and Afghanistan and to a lesser extent to the northwest in the Caucasus proper.[21][22]

A Greek folk etymology connected the name to Perseus, a legendary character in Greek mythology. Herodotus recounts this story,[25] devising a foreign son, Perses, from whom the Persians took the name. Apparently, the Persians themselves knew the story,[26] as Xerxes I tried to use it to suborn the Argives during his invasion of Greece, but ultimately failed to do so.

History of usage

Although Persis was originally one of the provinces of ancient Iran,[27] varieties of this term (e.g. Persia) were adopted through Greek sources and used as an official name for all of Iran for many years.[28] Thus, in the Western world, the term Persian came to refer to all inhabitants of the country.[28]

Some medieval and early modern Islamic sources also used cognates of the term Persian to refer to various Iranian peoples, including the speakers of the Khwarezmian language,[29] the Mazanderani language,[30] and the Old Azeri language.[31] 10th-century Iraqi historian Al-Masudi refers to Pahlavi, Dari and Azari as dialects of the Persian language.[32] In 1333, medieval Moroccan traveler and scholar Ibn Battuta referred to the people of Kabul as a specific sub-tribe of Persians.[33] Lady Mary (Leonora Woulfe) Sheil, in her observation of Iran during the Qajar era, describes Persians, Kurds, and Leks to identify themselves as "descendants of the ancient Persians".[20]

On March 21, 1935, the former king of Iran, Reza Shah of the Pahlavi dynasty, issued a decree asking the international community to use the term Iran, the native name of the country, in formal correspondence. However, the term Persian is still historically used to designate the predominant population of the Iranian peoples living in the Iranian cultural continent.[34][35][36][37]

Ancient Persian and Greek soldiers as depicted on a color reconstruction of the 4th-century BC Alexander Sarcophagus.

The ancient Persians were a nomadic branch of the Iranian population that, in the early 10th century BC, settled to the northwest of modern-day Iran.[8][9][43][44] They were initially dominated by the Assyrians for much of the first three centuries after arriving in the region. However, they played a major role in the downfall of the Neo-Assyrian Empire.[45][46] The Medes, another branch of this population, founded the unified empire of Media as the region's dominant cultural and political power in c. 625 BC.[10] Meanwhile, the Persian dynasty of the Achaemenids formed a vassal state to the central Median power. In c. 552 BC, the Achaemenids began a revolution which eventually led to the conquest of the empire by Cyrus II in c. 550 BC. They spread their influence to the rest of what is called the Iranian Plateau, and assimilated with the non-Iranian indigenous groups of the region, including the Elamites and the Mannaeans.[47][48][49]

At its greatest extent, the Achaemenid Empire stretched from parts of Eastern Europe in the west, to the Indus Valley in the east, making it the largest empire the world had yet seen.[11] The Achaemenids developed the infrastructure to support their growing influence, including the creation of Pasargadae and the opulent city of Persepolis.[50] The empire extended as far as the limits of the Greek city states in modern-day mainland Greece, where the Persians and Athenians influenced each other in what is essentially a reciprocal cultural exchange.[51] Its legacy and impact on the kingdom of Macedon was also notably huge,[13] even for centuries after the withdrawal of the Persians from Europe following the Greco-Persian Wars.[13] The empire collapsed in 330 BC following the conquests of Alexander the Great, but reemerged shortly after as the Parthian Empire.

During the Achaemenid era, Persian colonists settled in Asia Minor.[52] In Lydia (the most important Achaemenid satrapy), near Sardis, there was the Hyrcanian plain, which, according to Strabo, got its name from the Persian settlers that were moved from Hyrcania.[53] Similarly near Sardis, there was the plain of Cyrus, which further signified the presence of numerous Persian settlements in the area.[54] In all these centuries, Lydia and Pontus were reportedly the chief centers for the worship of the Persian gods in Asia Minor.[54] According to Pausanias, as late as the second century AD, one could witness rituals which resembled the Persian fire ceremony at the towns of Hyrocaesareia and Hypaepa.[54]Mithridates III of Cius, a Persian nobleman and part of the Persian ruling elite of the town of Cius, founded the Kingdom of Pontus in his later life, in northern Asia Minor.[55][56] At the peak of its power, under the infamous Mithridates VI the Great, the Kingdom of Pontus also controlled Colchis, Cappadocia, Bithynia, the Greek colonies of the Tauric Chersonesos, and for a brief time the Roman province of Asia. After a long struggle with Rome in the Mithridatic Wars, Pontus was defeated; part of it was incorporated into the Roman Republic as the province Bithynia and Pontus, and the eastern half survived as a client kingdom.

Following the Macedonian conquests, the Persian colonists in Cappadocia and the rest of Asia Minor were cut off from their co-religionists in Iran proper, but they continued to practice the Zoroastrian faith of their forefathers.[57]Strabo, who observed them in the Cappadocian Kingdom in the first century BC, records (XV.3.15) that these "fire kindlers" possessed many "holy places of the Persian Gods", as well as fire temples.[57] Strabo, who wrote during the time of Augustus (r. 63 BC-14 AD), almost three hundred years after the fall of the Achaemenid Persian Empire, records only traces of Persians in western Asia Minor; however, he considered Cappadocia "almost a living part of Persia".[58]

Until the Parthian era, the Iranian identity had an ethnic, linguistic, and religious value. However, it did not yet have a political import.[59]Parthian, a mutually intelligible language with Middle Persian,[60] became an official language of the Parthian Empire. It had influences on Persian,[61][62][63] as well as a major influence on the neighboring Armenian language.

By the time of the Sassanian Empire, a national culture which was fully aware of being Iranian took shape, partially motivated by restoration and revival of the wisdom of "the old sages" (Middle Persian: dānāgān pēšēnīgān).[59] Other aspects of this national culture included the glorification of a great heroic past and an archaizing spirit.[59] Throughout the period, the Iranian identity reached its height in every aspect.[59]Middle Persian, which is the immediate ancestor of Modern Persian and a variety of other Iranian dialects,[61][64][65] became the official language of the empire[66] and was greatly diffused among Iranians.[59]

The intermingling of Persians, Medes, Parthians, Bactrians, and indigenous "pre-Iranian" people of Iran (including the Elamites) gained more ground, and a homogeneous Iranian identity was created to the extent that all were just called Iranians, irrespective of clannish affiliations and regional linguistic or dialectal alterities. Furthermore, the process of incomers' assimilation which had been started with the Greeks, continued in the face of Arab, Mongol, and Turkic invasions and proceeded right up to Islamic times.[47][70]

Anthropology

In modern-day Iran, Persians make up the majority of the population.[3] They speak the western varieties of modern Persian,[71] which also serves as the country's official language.[72]

Related groups

There are several ethnic groups and communities which are either ethnically or linguistically related to the Persian people, living predominantly in Iran, and also within Afghanistan, the Caucasus, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Turkey, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Oman, and the United Arab Emirates.[82]

The Hazaras, making up the third largest ethnic group in Afghanistan,[87][88][89] are a Persian-speaking people speaking a variety of Persian called Hazaragi,[90][91] which is more precisely a part of the Dari dialect continuum (one of the two main languages of Afghanistan),[92] and is mutually intelligible with Dari.[93]

The Aimaqs are a semi-nomadic Persian-speaking people found mostly in western Afghanistan.[94] They mainly speak a variety of Persian called Aimaq, which is close to the Khorasani and Dari varieties.[95]

Art

The artistic heritage of the Persians is eclectic, and includes major contributions from both the east and the west. Persian art borrowed heavily from the indigenous Elamite civilization and Mesopotamia, and later from the Hellenistic civilization. In addition, due to the central location of Greater Iran, it has served as a fusion point between eastern and western traditions.

Not all Persian literature is written in Persian, as some consider works written by Persians in other languages—such as Arabic and Greek—to be included. At the same time, not all literature written in Persian is written by ethnic Persians or Iranians, as Turkic, Caucasian, and Indic poets and writers have also used the Persian language in the environment of Persianate cultures.

Architecture

The most prominent examples of ancient Persian architecture are the work of the Achaemenids hailing from Persis. The quintessential feature of Achaemenid architecture was its eclectic nature, with elements from Median architecture, Assyrian architecture, and Asiatic Greek architecture all incorporated.[100] Achaemenid architectural heritage, beginning with the expansion of the empire around 550 BC, was a period of artistic growth that left a legacy ranging from Cyrus the Great's solemn tomb at Pasargadae to the structures at Persepolis, and such historical sites as Naqsh-e Rustam.[101]

Gardens

"The Great King [Cyrus II]...in all the districts he resides in and visits, takes care that there are paradeisos ("paradise", from Avestanpairidaēza) as they [Persians] call them, full of the good and beautiful things that the soil produce."

For the Achaemenid monarchs, gardens assumed an important place.[103] Persian gardens utilized the Achaemenid knowledge of water technologies,[104] as they utilized aqueducts, earliest recorded gravity-fed water rills, and basins arranged in a geometric system. The enclosure of this symmetrically arranged planting and irrigation, by an infrastructure such as a building or a palace created the impression of "paradise".[105] Parthians and Sasanians later added their own modifications to the original Achaemenid design.[103] Later on, the quadripartite design (čārbāq) of Persian gardens was reinterpreted within the Muslim world.

Music

Dancers and musical instrument players depicted on a Sasanian silver bowl from the 5th-7th century AD.

According to the accounts reported by Xenophon, a great number of singers were present at the Achaemenid court. However, little information is available from the music of that era. The music scene of the Sasanian Empire has a more available and detailed documentation than the earlier periods, and is especially more evident within the context of Zoroastrian musical rituals.[106] In general, Sasanian music was influential, and was later adopted in the subsequent eras.[107]

Iranian music, as a whole, utilizes a variety of musical instruments that are unique to the region, and has remarkably evolved since the ancient and medieval times. In traditional Sasanian music, the octave was divided into seventeen tones. By the end of the 13th century, Iranian music also maintained a twelve interval octave, which resembled the western counterparts.[108]

Traditional instruments used in Iranian music include the bowed spike-fiddle kamanche, the goblet drum tonbak, the end-blown flute ney, the large frame drum daf, the hammered dulcimer santur, and the four long-necked lutes tar, dotar, setar, and tanbur. The European string instrument violin is also used, with an alternative tuning preferred by Iranian musicians.

Carpets

Carpet weaving is an essential part of the Persian culture,[109] and Persian rugs are said to be one of the most detailed hand-made works of art.

Achaemenid rug and carpet artistry is well recognized. Xenophon describes the carpet production in the city of Sardis, stating that the locals take pride in their carpet production. A special mention of Persian carpets is also made by Athenaeus of Naucratis in his Deipnosophistae, as he describes a "delightfully embroidered" Persian carpet with "preposterous shapes of griffins".[110]

The Pazyryk carpet—a Scythian pile-carpet dating back to the 4th century BC, which is regarded the world's oldest existing carpet—depicts elements of Assyrian and Achaemenid design, including stylistic references to the stone slab designs found in Persian royal buildings.[110]

^Fyre, R. N. (March 29, 2012). "IRAN v. PEOPLES OF IRAN". Encyclopaedia Iranica. The largest group of people in present-day Iran are Persians (*q.v.) who speak dialects of the language called Fārsi in Persian, since it was primarily the tongue of the people of Fārs.

^ ab"TAJIK i. THE ETHNONYM: ORIGINS AND APPLICATION". Encyclopædia Iranica. July 20, 2009. By mid-Safavid times the usage tājik for 'Persian(s) of Iran' may be considered a literary affectation, an expression of the traditional rivalry between Men of the Sword and Men of the Pen. Pietro della Valle, writing from Isfahan in 1617, cites only Pārsi and ʿAjami as autonyms for the indigenous Persians, and Tāt and raʿiat 'peasant(ry), subject(s)' as pejorative heteronyms used by the Qezelbāš (Qizilbāš) Torkmān elite. Perhaps by about 1400, reference to actual Tajiks was directed mostly at Persian-speakers in Afghanistan and Central Asia; (...)

^Ostler, Nicholas (2010). The Last Lingua Franca: English Until the Return of Babel. Penguin UK. pp. 1–352. ISBN978-0141922218. Tat was known to have been used at different times to designate Crimean Goths, Greeks and sedentary peoples generally, but its primary reference came to be the Persians within the Turkic domains. (...) Tat is nowadays specialized to refer to special groups with Iranian languages in the west of the Caspian Sea.

^The language of Tabriz, being an Iranian language during the time of Qatran Tabrizi, was not the standard Khurasani Parsi-ye Dari. Qatran Tabrizi(11th century) has an interesting couplet mentioning this fact:
Mohammad-Amin Riahi. “Molehaazi darbaareyeh Zabaan-I Kohan Azerbaijan”(Some comments on the ancient language of Azerbaijan), ‘Itilia’at Siyasi Magazine, volume 181–182.

^Ibn Battuta (2004). Travels in Asia and Africa, 1325-1354. Routledge. p. 180. ISBN��0-415-34473-5. We travelled on to Kabul, formerly a vast town, the site of which is now occupied by a village inhabited by a tribe of Persians called Afghans. They hold mountains and defiles and possess considerable strength, and are mostly highwaymen. Their principal mountain is called Kuh Sulayman. It is told that the prophet Sulayman [Solomon] ascended this mountain and having looked out over India, which was then covered with darkness, returned without entering it.

^The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition (2000). "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2009-02-12. Retrieved 2008-07-16.CS1 maint: Archived copy as title (link)

^Bausani, Alessandro. The Persians, from the earliest days to the twentieth century. 1971, Elek. ISBN978-0-236-17760-8

^ abcdeGHERARDO GNOLI, "IRANIAN IDENTITY" in Encyclopaedia Iranica". Excerpt 1: " All this evidence shows that the name arya Iranian was a collective definition, denoting peoples (Geiger, pp. 167 f.; Schmitt, 1978, p. 31) who were aware of belonging to the one ethnic stock, speaking a common language, and having a religious tradition that centered on the cult of Ahura Mazdā.". Excerpt 2: "The inscriptions of Darius I (see DARIUS iii) and Xerxes, in which the different provinces of the empire are listed, make it clear that, between the end of the 6th century and the middle of the 5th century B.C.E., the Persians were already aware of belonging to the ariya “Iranian” nation (see ARYA and ARYANS). Darius and Xerxes boast of belonging to a stock which they call “Iranian”: they proclaim themselves “Iranian” and “of Iranian stock,” ariya and ariya čiça respectively, in inscriptions in which the Iranian countries come first in a list that is arranged in a new hierarchical and ethno-geographical order, compared for instance with the list of countries in Darius’s inscription at Behistun" Excerpt 3: "Although, up until the end of the Parthian period, Iranian identity had an ethnic, linguistic, and religious value, it did not yet have a political import. The idea of an “Iranian” empire or kingdom is a purely Sasanian one". Excerpt 4:"It was in the Sasanian period, then, that the pre-Islamic Iranian identity reached the height of its fulfilment in every aspect: political, religious, cultural, and linguistic (with the growing diffusion of Middle Persian). Its main ingredients were the appeal to a heroic past that was identified or confused with little-known Achaemenid origins (Yarshater, 1971; Daryaee, 1995), and the religious tradition, for which the Avesta was the chief source.". Also accessed online at: [1] in May, 2011

^ abUlrich Ammon, Norbert Dittmar, Klaus J. Mattheier, Peter Trudgill, "Sociolinguistics Hsk 3/3 Series Volume 3 of Sociolinguistics: An International Handbook of the Science of Language and Society", Walter de Gruyter, 2006. 2nd edition. pg 1912. Excerpt: "Middle Persian, also called Pahlavi is a direct continuation of old Persian, and was used as the written official language of the country." "However, after the Moslem conquest and the collapse of the Sassanids, Arabic became the dominant language of the country and Pahlavi lost its importance, and was gradually replaced by Dari, a variety of Middle Persian, with considerable loan elements from Arabic and Parthian."

^Skjærvø, Prods Oktor (2006). Encyclopedia Iranica,"Iran, vi. Iranian languages and scripts, "new Persian, is "the descendant of Middle Persian" and has been "official language of Iranian states for centuries", whereas for other non-Persian Iranian languages "close genetic relationships are difficult to establish" between their different (Middle and Modern) stages. Modern Yaḡnōbi belongs to the same dialect group as Sogdian, but is not a direct descendant; Bactrian may be closely related to modern Yidḡa and Munji (Munjāni); and Wakhi (Wāḵi) belongs with Khotanese."

^Gilbert Lazard: The language known as New Persian, which usually is called at this period (early Islamic times) by the name of Dari or Farsi-Dari, can be classified linguistically as a continuation of Middle Persian, the official religious and literary language of Sassanian Iran, itself a continuation of Old Persian, the language of the Achaemenids. Unlike the other languages and dialects, ancient and modern, of the Iranian group such as Avestan, Parthian, Soghdian, Kurdish, Balochi, Pashto, etc., Old Middle and New Persian represent one and the same language at three states of its history. It had its origin in Fars (the true Persian country from the historical point of view) and is differentiated by dialectical features, still easily recognizable from the dialect prevailing in north-western and eastern Iran. In Lazard, Gilbert 1975, "The Rise of the New Persian Language" in Frye, R. N., The Cambridge History of Iran, Vol. 4, pp. 595–632, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

^Benjamin W. Fortson, "Indo-European Language and Culture: An Introduction", John Wiley and Sons, 2009. pg 242: " Middle Persian was the official language of the Sassanian dynasty"

^Lazard, Gilbert 1975, "The Rise of the New Persian Language" in Frye, R. N., The Cambridge History of Iran, Vol. 4, pp. 595–632, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. "The language known as New Persian, which usually is called at this period (early Islamic times) by the name of Dari or Farsi-Dari, can be classified linguistically as a continuation of Middle Persian, the official religious and literary language of Sassanian Iran, itself a continuation of Old Persian, the language of the Achaemenids. Unlike the other languages and dialects, ancient and modern, of the Iranian group such as Avestan, Parthian, Soghdian, Kurdish, Balochi, Pashto, etc., Old Persian, Middle and New Persian represent one and the same language at three states of its history. It had its origin in Fars (the true Persian country from the historical point of view) and is differentiated by dialectical features, still easily recognizable from the dialect prevailing in north-western and eastern Iran."

^Ulrich Ammon, Norbert Dittmar, Klaus J. Mattheier, Peter Trudgill, "Sociolinguistics Hsk 3/3 Series Volume 3 of Sociolinguistics: An International Handbook of the Science of Language and Society", Walter de Gruyter, 2006. 2nd edition. pg 1912. Excerpt: "Middle Persian, also called Pahlavi is a direct continuation of old Persian, and was used as the written official language of the country." "However, after the Moslem conquest and the collapse of the Sassanids, the Pahlavi language was gradually replaced by Dari, a variety of Middle Persian, with considerable loan elements from Arabic and Parthian."

^Skjærvø, Prods Oktor (2006). Encyclopedia Iranica, "Iran, vi. Iranian languages and scripts, "new Persian, is "the descendant of Middle Persian" and has since been "official language of Iranian states for centuries", whereas for other non-Persian Iranian languages "close genetic relationships are difficult to establish" between their different (Middle and Modern) stages. Modern Yaḡnōbi belongs to the same dialect group as Sogdian, but is not a direct descendant; Bactrian may be closely related to modern Yidḡa and Munji (Munjāni); and Wakhi (Wāḵi) belongs with Khotanese."

^Don Stillo, "Isfahan-Provincial Dialects" in Encyclopedia Iranica, Excerpt: "While the modern SWI languages, for instance, Persian, Lori-Bak_tia-ri and others, are derived directly from Old Persian through Middle Persian/Pahlavi"